


Once In A Blue Moon

by inmyriadbits



Category: The Blue Castle - L.M. Montgomery
Genre: Backstory, Canadian Shack, Character Study, F/M, Marriage, Missing Scene, Romance, Yuletide, alternate POV
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-12-25
Updated: 2007-12-25
Packaged: 2017-10-02 16:21:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,602
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8319
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inmyriadbits/pseuds/inmyriadbits
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first time Barney Snaith was in love, he wasn't actually Barney Snaith yet. He was still Bernard Snaith Redfern, and he was insanely, imprudently in love with Ethel Traverse.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Once In A Blue Moon

**Author's Note:**

  * For [automaticdoor](https://archiveofourown.org/users/automaticdoor/gifts).



> Written for [automaticdoor](http://automaticdoor.livejournal.com/profile) for Yuletide 2007 and also archived [there](http://yuletidetreasure.org/archive/47/oncein.html). Thanks to [calathea](http://calathea.livejournal.com/profile) for looking this over and telling me it didn't suck. :)

The first time Barney Snaith was in love, he wasn't actually Barney Snaith yet. He was still Bernard Snaith Redfern, and he was insanely, imprudently in love with Ethel Traverse.

Bernie Redfern was an unhappy man who got his heart and his trust broken one time too many.

Barney was born in the Yukon, where he realized the only things people knew of him were what he revealed himself. His first few encounters after this revelation, he went a bit wild with the freedom, inventing a whole new history and name every time. But he soon became as tired of not being himself as he had when the name Redfern defined his existence, so he settled into being Barney Snaith, perpetual traveling stranger.

Barney Snaith was confident, the kind of man who wasn't friendless by the sole virtue of not needing any friends. Barney Snaith was not the son of a patent medicine doctor. He wasn't anyone's son, as far as most were concerned. Barney Snaith had a strong back, a quick mind, and a ready hand for work. Barney Snaith's smile twisted as much as his laugh. Barney Snaith didn't trust in friendship or in love, and he never stopped running away from his memories long enough to bother looking for either.

Barney Snaith had nothing to fear, because he had nothing to lose.

*****

Barney didn't remember exactly when he started writing. At some point in his travels, he started to feel as if he were bursting at the seams, full of ideas and opinions and stories that sped by so fast he was afraid of forgetting them, unhindered by anyone to share them with. Barney bought a journal at the next opportunity — just outside the Black Forest, as it happened. His first entries were of trees bent like old men, ancient beeches nearly doubled by the wind.

John Foster's first book was born from this journal. It was full of majestic icebergs floating in winter seas and haunting calls to prayer from needle-like spires in Istanbul. They were spectacular sights that helped him forget about Bernie Redfern, until that man was no more than a distant memory from another life.

When Barney returned to Canada, he fell in love again — this time with a faithful, honest little island cabin on Lake Mistawis.

*****

The only friends Barney made for a long while were the kind that couldn't speak.

Banjo was first. He simply wandered up one day, yowling and strolling into the cabin like he owned the place. Barney never bothered to wonder how the cat had managed to cross the lake; there were some questions that could never be answered. Banjo was soon followed by Good Luck, who climbed into Lady Jane as a kitten, tiny enough to curl up in the pocket of the coat piled in Barney's front seat and be carried all the way across to the island unnoticed. Barney discovered the stowaway when he reached for his pipe and encountered fur instead, and named him after the good fortune he'd had not to be sat on. The little owl he found crying on the ground and raised by hand was dubbed Leander for the way he hooted longingly across the water. Nip and Tuck, Barney's other bird companions, were the best chattering neighbors a man could ask for — they never stayed loud after the sun went down.

He met Roaring Abel Gay in early June, a few years after he moved to the cabin on Mistawis. Barney had been surprised to find a fierce, red-haired giant laying claim to his best fishing spot, to say the least. His first inclination was to find another place for the day, until the man glanced up with a devilish look in his eye which expected just that. Barney wasn't about to back down then. He walked over and sat right next to the stranger with a "Nice day for it, eh?" Abel had just grinned.

Some day his contrariness would get him in trouble, but it was not that lucky day.

Abel was drunk and still drinking, so not long after Barney sat down and traded introductions, he reached a boisterous level of intoxication and began bellowing admonishments at their quarry. Barney would have been annoyed — the man was scaring away the fish, after all — had he not been so amused. Very few men could preach as eloquently or passionately as Roaring Abel, and even fewer directed such attentions at fish. He spent the afternoon laughing too hard to hold his pole straight, while Abel passed judgment on the ancestry, morals, and general appearance of the fish in a strident monologue.

They struck up a cautious friendship after that. Abel welcomed the drinking buddy; his grandchild had just died, his daughter was dying of consumption and shunned by most of the town, and there was nothing he could do about either. Barney liked telling stories and getting drunk with Roaring Abel, and he enjoyed the company of sweet, tragic Cissy. He gave her as much kindness as she would take; Barney knew the wrench of being friendless through no fault of one's own.

*****

The first time Barney ever heard of Valancy Stirling, she was an oddity mentioned only in passing. Roaring Abel was drunk, of course, an early and loquacious stage. "I had a mouse wave at me today," he boomed, gesticulating expansively. "A Stirling mouse, at that! I raised my cap just to see those old biddies look stuffed, but God knows what got into that Valancy girl to make her wave back at me like that. I d----d near fell off the wagon!" Abel snorted. "Shame her mother didn't see. She might've fallen over, the sour old thing."

Barney wondered briefly what would make a mouse wave at a lion, but forgot the whole thing a moment later when Roaring Abel took off on another tale from his wild youth.

He heard more and more of Miss Stirling over the next months, after her surprising employment. When Abel was the cheerful sort of drunk, he laughingly recounted her sassy exchanges with him. In his more maudlin moments, he told of her care and companionship for Cissy with the grateful relief of Atlas released from his burden. The former tales amused Barney, who rarely saw anyone go toe-to-toe with Roaring Abel, but the latter won his good will. Barney was as fiercely protective of Cissy as he was fond of Abel's friendship. They had been kind to him, accepting him despite all the scandal in which Barney shrouded his character. He never forgot that generosity of spirit, uniformly scorning the rest of the town for being blind and spiteful. Miss Stirling, in this way, earned his regard before they ever met.

There were moments in their acquaintance when flashes of that elfin creature peeked through, first glimpsed in the dusky light of Abel's garden, and later seen in sideways glances, the curve of lips in secret humor, the light movement of fingers over leaves. Her self-possession puzzled him; Barney knew better than most what drove a person to disregard all opinions but their own, and he couldn't figure what had happened to Miss Stirling.

His fondness and the mystery kept Barney returning, as he did with the forest, to learn what he could of her calmly held secrets.

*****

Barney hadn't been really afraid of anything for years, until the night Miss Stirling foolishly went up to Chidley Corners. He was scared for her, scared of what Cissy and Abel would do if she wasn't with them, scared of losing any of them. Barney was relieved beyond words when it was all resolved with a single punch and a dash through the dark woods, but he was angry at her, unfairly, for scaring him. He thought he'd left fear along with Bernie Redfern, exorcised in the words he'd written as John Foster. Barney didn't like the idea of its return.

His temper cooled as he sped Lady Jane away from Chidley Corners. It wasn't Miss Stirling's fault that he was afraid, exactly. _Fear is the original sin_, he could almost hear her quoting his words back at him. Barney wasn't so sure anymore it was quite that bad, if fear came from caring. His lips quirked. John Foster, wrong again. Miss Stirling would be so disappointed.

His temper was utterly gone by the time Lady Jane sputtered and ran out of gas, leaving him calm and thoughtful as they talked of whimsical things and waited for luck to favor them. Barney pulled out a battered coat when he saw her shiver, and she looked quietly delighted, as if she'd never been taken care of before. She cuddled into his ratty old overcoat, pleased all out of proportion to such a simple courtesy, and Barney felt a bit sorry for her. Miss Stirling was a sweet girl, with more spine and imagination than her upbringing would suggest.

Barney smiled. He didn't so much mind being afraid on her behalf, after all.

*****

The second marriage proposal of Barney's life could not have been more different from the first. For one thing, he wasn't doing the asking. For another, he wasn't quiveringly in love and stuttering. No, Barney was merely affectionate, and somewhat sorry for Valancy. He cared enough about Valancy to wish her happiness for the short time she had left, and he knew she wouldn't find it at home with her stifling mother and aunt. He could give her a house, a husband, kindness and companionship, and so he did.

Barney took pleasure in introducing her to the woods, watching her delight in the new acquaintance just as he remembered doing years before. Valancy's affection for life in the Blue Castle made her glow as gently as moonlight, lighting her strange eyes with joy.

Barney had never realized how empty the cabin was until she filled it with their laughter, until he felt warmth chase through him at the lit windows welcoming him home.

*****

It sometimes seemed unreal to Barney that Valancy did not ask more of him. She never had, even before they were married and she only wanted for salt codfish. He liked that in people, the ability to take someone as they were and not ask for more. It was what had first drawn him to Roaring Abel, who wanted nothing but the company of a good sport to be happy. In Cissy's hands that quality had been softer, more generous than was wise. In Valancy, it was straightforward and honest. It had made him want to bring her presents even then, because the happiness she brought to Cissy deserved to be returned in kind.

Barney wasn't used to such undemanding closeness, though. He was sometimes ashamed to find himself pushing at it, like a loose tooth that made him uneasy. He asked her if she'd be happier with a million dollars, or if she wanted to live in one of the mansions on the little islets Valancy laughingly called the Fortunate Isles, but always received thoughtful, emphatic negatives.

She refused to let him buy her clothes, or to provide for anything beyond basic household needs. When Valancy asked for something frivolous for her Christmas present, Barney bought her a pearl necklace. She would never know their real worth, but he knew he valued the happiness on her face at these "beads" more than all the millions he'd left behind.

*****

Barney knew of Valancy's habitual waking in the wee small hours, although she rarely disturbed him by it. One night, he drifted up from his dreams to the feel of her fingertips lightly tracing his features. His hair was first, a small lock twisted around and released. Then his eyebrows — which he knew to be different shapes, uneven on his face, but the touch was admiring. Barney feigned sleep, uncertain of his response, as Valancy's fingers smoothed down the side of his nose to his lips, and rested there fondly. A soft laugh brushed over his skin, and he felt her roll away onto her back and slide easily into sleep.

Barney lay awake and watched her breathe, as deep and even as the moonlight spilling across her skin, for a long time before sleep returned to him.

*****

Valancy was never afraid to laugh in their bed, and Barney was glad for it. He had done this before, occasionally, with strangers in other lands, but it was different here, their Blue Castle. Her laughter reminded him of the depth of her, the way she held secret joy beneath and beyond its outward manifestation. As time went on, Barney discovered that he sought it out more. He fished for laughs with kisses to the corners of her eyes, fingers on the soft skin of her wrists and the elegant line of her throat. Barney found them more often than not, and other sounds besides, when his lips slid from throat to breast, fingers jumping from wrists to hips. Pleasure moved laughter to the back of Valancy's throat, where it caught and turned darker, fervent and pleading and still with that hidden depth.

"Moonlight," he whispered, soft in her ear as she arched beneath him, winning a shuddering gasp he both felt and heard. It left Barney mirroring her as he did in laughter, drawing his pleasure from hers.

That sound, he was realizing, was becoming far and away his favorite of them all.

*****

They sat out back of their Blue Castle once, during a long, reluctant summer sunset. Valancy was looking out over the lake, and both were afire with the reds and yellows of dying light.

"Look at the way the pine trees are cupping the sun in their branches. It almost seems they're holding out their arms to catch him back, like hosts sad to see a good friend go home at the end of the party. 'Please, stay for another story, Mr. Sun,'" Valancy spun the tale, affecting a high voice for the pine hostess. "'No, no, I really must be off, Miss Pine,'" she continued in a deeper tone. She laughed at her own whimsy, which made Barney laugh as well. He couldn't resist the fun that hid behind that sound.

Valancy often did this, weaving small stories about strangers or giving character to things in the woods. Barney's favorites were when the train passed by at the other end of the lake. Last time, Valancy had pointed to one of the cars and started telling Barney about the old widow sitting there. She had outlived all her kin, Valancy said, and bought the most outrageous hat while visiting a friend, which she couldn't wait to get home and put on so she could go out walking. And Valancy laughed.

*****

That evening was one of the things that skittered through his mind in those panicked seconds on the tracks. His fear over the events at Chidley Corners had made him angry, but the episode on the railroad switch left Barney lost. He'd never been so afraid for anything in his life — afraid of losing Valancy, afraid of having to live without her laugh. To say he'd handled it badly was an understatement, and when he'd found her gone, he was terrified of losing her all over again, had chased after her and fallen babbling at her feet until she saw that he loved her.

Now they were off to see the world together, so he could look at everything anew through Valancy's unusual eyes, and return home with her again.

Barney Snaith was finally, finally, the happy man Bernie Redfern had never been.


End file.
